How Foreign Scammers Use U.S. Banks to Fleece Americans

U.S. banks have failed to prevent mass-scale money laundering in the face of approximately $44 billion per year in pig-butchering scams conducted by Asian crime syndicates, according to a ProPublica investigation. Chinese-language Telegram channels openly advertise rental of U.S. bank accounts to scammers who use them to move victims' cash into cryptocurrency. Bank of America allowed hundreds of unverified customers to open accounts, prosecutors alleged, including 176 customers who claimed the same small home as their address. Major financial institutions whose accounts pig-butchering scammers have exploited include Bank of America, Chase, Citibank, HSBC and Wells Fargo. The scams typically involve fake cryptocurrency trading platforms that convince victims to wire money to seemingly legitimate business accounts. Banks are reluctant to share account information with each other even after identifying suspicious activity, and "no real standards" exist for what banks must do to detect fraud or money laundering.

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